Katy Perry Removes All Doubt About Chatbots Going Mainstream
A new bot built by a top team is an important part of her new album’s launch
If you’ve been rolling your eyes waiting for a real superstar to adopt a chatbot in earnest, click here. Katy Perry’s Messenger bot, developed by the boutique firm that built them for Snoop Dogg and the fictionally naughty Christian Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey, is now live where some 66 million followers can find it. Perry’s publicity machine. in high gear to promote her new album Witness released last week, hasn’t pitched the media about the bot, because the bot is but a tool to promote the album and its tour. You’ll notice that Katybot is intent on getting your location for show info.
Persona co-founder and bot designer Josh Bocanegra, who takes pride in focusing on little personal details that make a bot seem more human — Christina Milian’s bot pretends to be typing for an instant before it replies, rather than robo-responding instantaneously — isn’t ready to talk about Perry’s bot in detail yet. But you can see the attention to detail in the way it explains clearly to new followers how to interact with its guided conversations.
“Sorry, we’re not disclosing anything at the moment,” Bocanegra wrote in response to an email we sent with a few burning questions. “However, I would say our goals and choices are data driven, not opinion-based.”
The Year of Early Adoption Is Over
Our choices are data-driven. Josh (calling him “Bocanegra” sounds like we’re frenemies) couldn’t have said that a year ago, because there was no data. The rush of celebrities, big brands, and nobodies who flooded Messenger with thousands of beginner-bots a year ago petered out when marketers with goals didn’t see those goals being met. Internet adventurers lost interest when the first built-int0-Facebook chatbots didn’t live up to the blatant hype that they would engage in friendly small talk with us while selling us shoes chosen personally by artificial intelligence.
Those weren’t data-driven plans based on a chart from Forrester Research. They were the audacity of Hope. But a year later, we’ve got numbers to work with. Chatbots have a measured 15 to 60 percent response rate, numbers that mailing list managers have trouble believing. Some brands claim to get as many responses from their bot as they do from their Facebook page. No names here, but I checked a few big bot brands and many aren’t bothering to run Google ads. The bot is where it’s at.
When Facebook used Maroon 5 — a client of Octane AI who publish this site — as a go-to example of chatbot marketing at the F8 developer conference in April, you could feel the measured response. Sure, M5 had used the bot to launch another hit single, and Adam Levine has a lovely falsetto, but where are the supergiant power players? Where’s Lady Gaga’s bot? Taylor Swift’s? Their Facebook pages can be summed up as a Shop Now button.
But now Katy Perry has a bot. Katy Perry isn’t sort-of big, nor is anyone wondering if she has staying power. It’s been almost a decade since anyone believed “I Kissed a Girl” would be her first and last hit. She’s racked up nine #1 singles. Witness, released last Thursday, is likely to debut at #1 on Billboard’s album chart this week, even though its singles haven’t blown up and Spin hates it.
The release of Witness is the most important, carefully orchestrated marketing event in Hollywood this month. Did you notice that Taylor Swift finally let Spotify carry her music beginning the night of Witness’ release? The album’s marketing armada includes a carefully planned bot built by a team that’s spent the past year establishing itself as the new genre’s hitmakers.
I think we’re out of the early adopter phase.
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